Why Criticising the Israeli Government Is Not Antisemitic: The Necessary Distinction

In certain arguments, the first accusation arrives before the first sentence is finished. A person raises a criticism of the Israeli government—its military conduct, its settlement policy, its blockade of Gaza—and almost immediately the conversation shifts. The question becomes not whether the criticism is accurate, or fair, or supported by evidence, but whether the speaker is antisemitic. The charge lands with a particular force, because antisemitism is not merely another form of prejudice. It is one of history’s most persistent and murderous hatreds. Yet the growing habit of equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism rests on a confusion that collapses several very different things into one.

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Judaism is a religion and a civilization with a history that stretches back thousands of years. Jewish identity encompasses communities scattered across continents, cultures, languages, and political traditions. Israel, by contrast, is a modern nation-state established in 1948, the product of twentieth-century geopolitics, war, and national aspiration. The Israeli government is something narrower still: a particular coalition of parties, leaders, and policies, elected for a time and replaceable by voters. These distinctions may seem obvious, yet the debate over Israel frequently ignores them. When criticism of a government becomes indistinguishable from hostility toward a people, the line between political disagreement and prejudice begins to dissolve.

Inside Israel itself, that line remains visible. Israeli politics is famously contentious. Governments fall, coalitions fracture, and protests fill city squares. Newspapers run investigations into military decisions and intelligence failures. Former generals question strategy. Lawyers bring cases against the state in Israeli courts. Human-rights organizations—many led by Israelis and staffed by Israeli researchers—document abuses and publish reports that are often more severe than anything written abroad. This internal criticism is not treated as an expression of antisemitism; it is understood as part of democratic life. A state that defines itself as democratic necessarily accepts the right of its citizens to challenge its policies.

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International law rests on a similar premise. After the Second World War, the world attempted to construct rules to restrain the worst impulses of governments. The Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, and a web of human-rights treaties were meant to apply universally. They were written with the memory of the Holocaust very much in mind, but they were not intended for one historical circumstance alone. Their logic is simple: states possess enormous power, and therefore they must be subject to scrutiny when they use it. To apply these laws to Israel is not to single out Jews; it is to treat Israel like every other state that claims membership in the international order.

Criticism of governments is hardly unique to Israel. Russia is condemned for its war in Ukraine; China faces scrutiny over Xinjiang; Saudi Arabia has been criticized for its campaign in Yemen; Myanmar has been accused of atrocities against the Rohingya. In each case, the criticism concerns the actions of a state and its leadership. It does not imply hostility toward Russians, Chinese people, Saudis, or Burmese citizens as ethnic groups. The same principle applies to Israel. One can object to the policies of a government without imputing collective guilt to the people associated with it.

Antisemitism, properly understood, is something different altogether. It involves hostility toward Jews as Jews: the recycling of ancient stereotypes, conspiracy theories about hidden influence, or the collective blaming of Jewish communities for the actions of individuals or states. These forms of prejudice have appeared across centuries and continents, often with catastrophic consequences. When someone claims that Jews control governments or finance, or suggests that Jews as a people are responsible for violence anywhere in the world, the accusation of antisemitism is not rhetorical excess; it is a precise description of the problem.

But political criticism does not operate in that register. When journalists examine a military campaign, when lawyers debate whether certain tactics violate international law, when scholars argue about the ethics of occupation or blockade, they are engaging with policy. Their focus is on decisions made by institutions—cabinet meetings, military commands, legislative votes—not on the religious or ethnic identity of the people who happen to live within a country’s borders. Conflating these categories risks creating a world in which some governments are insulated from scrutiny simply because of the identity associated with the state.

There is another danger in blurring the distinction. Antisemitism remains a serious and growing threat in many parts of the world. Jewish communities continue to face vandalism, violence, and conspiracy-driven hostility. When the term “antisemitism” is stretched to include every harsh critique of Israeli policy, its meaning becomes diluted. Accusations that should carry undeniable moral weight begin to sound like ordinary political disputes. The result is not greater protection for Jews but a weakening of the language used to defend them.

None of this implies that criticism of Israel cannot cross the line into antisemitism. It certainly can. When Israel is demonized in ways that echo ancient anti-Jewish tropes, when Jewish people everywhere are held responsible for Israeli actions, or when criticism singles out Israel while ignoring comparable situations elsewhere, the boundary between political argument and prejudice may indeed be crossed. The point is not that the accusation should never be made, but that it should be made carefully and with precision.

The ability to criticize governments is one of the foundations of democratic discourse. Without it, political power becomes insulated from accountability. Recognizing the distinction between a state and a people is therefore not merely a matter of intellectual clarity; it is a safeguard against prejudice itself. When criticism is directed at policy, law, and conduct, it belongs to the realm of politics. When it targets identity, ethnicity, or religion, it belongs to the realm of bigotry.

The challenge, in the debate over Israel as in many others, is to keep those categories separate. Only then can discussions about war, justice, and responsibility proceed on their merits rather than collapsing into accusations that obscure more than they illuminate.

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